IIRC, I may still have an old AI issue which included phots and 3 views of what was proposed circa 1987… not an under-the-tail ramp, but at the time the mock-up was a side loading cargo door and deployable ramp

If you had clicked on the link in my post, you would have noted that there were 3 different versions on offer in 1987:

FLIGHT INTERNATIONAL, 1 August 1987

A militarised version of the BAe 146QT, the BAe 146MSL (Military Side Loader) has the standard upward opening 131in-wide side cargo door, while the BAe 146MT (Military Tanker) features underwing flight refuelling pods to give the aircraft a dual-point aerial refuelling capability which is compatible with most combat aircraft.

A BAE 146M (Military Rear Loader) variant offers large hydraulically operated rear-loading-ramp doors allied to a lowered main deck floor capable of accepting larger and/or heavy payloads. The main undercarriage will be redesigned to tandem configuration and housed in fuselage sponsons.

The range of any of these models can be extended by the installation of a flight refuelling probe above the flightdeck.

Besides, no US carrier had that funnel shape!

Definitely not USS Antietam… during her Jan-March 1955 med-cruise she carried S2F-1 (VS-26), HSS-1 (HS-1), and AD-5W (VC-12 Det.)… no Cutlasses.

Browsing here: http://navysite.de/carriers.htm (click on the carrier you want then scan down the page until you find a sentence telling you to “click here” to see a list of deployments) finds this, however.

USS INTREPID CV-11: March 12, 1956-September 5, 1956; CVG-8; VA-83 (F7U-8); Tail code E; Area of Operations: Mediterranean (her tail code for her 1955 Med-cruise was F, and she had no F7U aboard then).

The ship that had tail code E assigned in 1955 was USS Lake Champlain CV-39… but she had no F7U aboard for her September 28, 1954-April 22, 1955 Med-cruise.

The only other ship to carry F7Us into the Med in 1954-57 (the only years the F7U was deployed aboard ship) was:
USS Ticonderoga CV-14: November 4, 1955-August 2, 1956; VA-66 (F7U-3); Tail code K

Thus, it seems that 1956 must be the actual year of the photo and CV-11 USS Intrepid the ship… especially as you can make out VA-83 on the port vertical stabilizer of the Cutlass!!

The only units to have taken the type to sea were:
VF-124, USS Hancock (CVA-19), August 1955 – March 1956; VF-81, USS Ticonderoga (CVA-14), November 1955 – August 1956; VF-86, USS Forrestal (CVA-59), January – March 1956; VF-83, USS Intrepid (CVA-11), March – September 1956; VF-212, USS Bon Homme Richard (CVA-31), August 1956 – February 1957.

For the “new production Harrier II” crowd…

Between 1969 and 2003, 824 Harrier variants were delivered. While manufacture of new Harriers concluded in 1997, the last remanufactured aircraft (Harrier II Plus configuration) was delivered in December 2003 which ended the Harrier production line.

13 years since the last new whole airframes were produced, and 7 years since the last new airframe components were produced (the remanufacture hung a new fuselage under overhauled main wings & tail structures, with refurbished engines stuffed into them).

All the subcontractors who built the airframe components have long since gone to building other things (and some have likely gone out of business), and the production jigs, etc have been scrapped (unless the government paid for them to be stored… and is still paying the storage fees).

Likewise, McDD (bought by Boeing) will have disposed of anything required solely for “whole-aircraft” manufacture (again, unless the government is paying them to store them).

The possibility of re-starting production of new Harriers is very unlikely… unless a large sum of money is spent up-front to re-establish the capability to build them.

The UK built 4 ships of the Invinivible class and one slightly larger derivative so the size and scale are not outside the realm of possibility.

No, they didn’t!

The UK built 3 Invincible class ships, and that “slightly larger derivative” came 13 years after the last of those 3!

EDIT: Also I thought the Canberra’s are being built at a cost of about £1 billion a ship, therefore two LHD’s would be ~£2 billion compared to £5.2 billion for the CVF’s!?!

The ship cost is £3.9 billion for the CVF’s… £1.3 billion was development costs (already spent & gone with no possibility of recovery).

Subtract the £1.25 billion already contractually obligated, and you get a maximum “savings” of £2.65 billion.

Then you spend ~£2 billion for your two LHD’s (actually more, as there would be a few detail changes for UK-specific equipment.

That is if they are built in Spain, as the RAN’s Canberra class is… which means virtually no taxes being returned to the UK Treasury… unlike now, where a lot of taxes are coming back on all the salaries & other “in-UK” purchases.

So you save at most £650 million and get two smaller, less-capable ships.

Not really much of a good deal, it seems to me.

If conditions are perfect, you don’t need much vertical stabilizer at all.

B-52H 61-023: 1964-01-10, over New Mexico… landed safely in Arkansas (it took hours to find a B-52 base with no ground winds and to plan the landing attempt).

Of course, this was one of a series of vertical stabilizer failures after the change from high-altitude to low-altitude bombing… something the B-52 wasn’t designed for (sounds familiar, right V-bomber force?)… the other 3 aircraft crashed*, with fatalities.
1963-01-24 B-52C 53-0406, 7 dead 2 survived, Elephant Mountain, Maine
1963-01-30 B-52E 57-0018, 2 dead 4 survived, Mora, New Mexico
1964-01-13 B-52D 55-0060, 3 dead 2 survived, Cumberland, Maryland

* in addition, several other B-52s crashed after horizontal stabilizer & main wing failures during high-speed low-level flight.

Did anyone see the rumours of a replacement for HMS Endurance? Where is that funding coming from in these cash strapped times?

Nobody is proposing to cut capital spending to zero. Ships, aircraft, guns etc. will still be bought – just fewer or cheaper ones.

Besides… how much does a used Norwegian icebreaker cost?

http://www.portsmouth.co.uk/newshome/HMS-Endurance-to-be-replaced.6519109.jp